GEMS: Moons of Jupiter

GEMS: Moons of Jupiter

Your students re-enact Galileo’s historic telescopic observations of Jupiter’s moons. They observe and record moon orbits over time and learn why these observations helped signal the birth of modern astronomy. Students experiment to learn how craters are formed; make scale models to better understand size and distance; and take a grand tour of the Jupiter system as viewed by the Voyager spacecraft. Then students work in teams to create, from an assortment of common materials, a settlement on one of the moons of Jupiter.